1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vending machine having commodity columns on which commodities are arranged in the front and rear direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the commodity column of this type has been proposed in various modes. Generally, a commodity column in which a commodity passage is formed by a bottom wall on which commodities are placed and side walls extending at the right and left of the bottom wall has been known. For the commodity column of this type, when a commodity on the commodity column is carried out, a pusher provided on the bottom wall of the commodity column is driven to push out the rear commodity to the front, by which commodities are dropped and carried out one by one in order from the commodity in the front row (for example, the commodity column described in Japanese Patent Publication 2006-318258).
When commodities are replenished on the commodity column, or when the commodity column is repaired or serviced, each commodity column is pulled out to the front, or the commodity column having been pulled out to the front is removed, by which the commodity replenishing work or the repairing work is performed. To carry out the pulling-out operation or the removing operation of each commodity column as described above, a support member extending in the front and rear direction is formed between the adjacent commodity columns so that the commodity column can be pulled out to the front via this support member.
For the conventional commodity column, since commodities are arranged in one row only, commodity columns corresponding to the number of commodity rows must be provided, and accordingly the number of support member arrangement spaces between the commodity columns increases.
Although each support member arrangement space between the commodity columns is narrow, since the number of commodity columns is large, the total width of the spaces is very wide, which is a major cause for decreasing the commodity storage capacity of the vending machine.